Black & White - Walkthrough

Von: "Elliott" <peter5@icon.co.za>
INDEX
1. Version History
2. Introduction
3.Doesn"t exist
4. The Basic Gameplay
4.1 Playing Good
4.2 Playing Evil
5. Creature Training
5.1 Basic knowledge
5.2 Basic behaviour
5.3 Basic learning
5.4 Specific creature actions
5.4.1 The urges of feeding and sleeping
5.4.2 The eating of villagers
5.4.3 The art of throwing objects
5.4.4 The assisting in village duties
5.4.5 The importance of housekeeping
6. Village Management
7. Island specific tips and secrets
7.1 The first island
7.2 The second island
7.3 The third island
7.4 The fourth island
7.5 The fifth island
8. Silver scroll solutions
8.1 Quests on the first island
8.1.1 Throwing Stones
8.1.2 The Savior
8.1.3 The Lost Flock
8.1.4 The Singing Stones (1)
8.1.5 The Explorers
8.1.6 The Pied Piper
8.1.7 The Hermit
8.1.8 The Ogre
8.1.9 Mushroom cooking quest
8.2 Quests on the second island
8.2.1 The Plague
8.2.2 The Sacrifice
8.2.3 The Sea
8.2.4 The Singing Stones (2)
8.2.5 The Beach Temple Puzzle
8.2.6 The Greedy Farmer
8.2.7 The Idol
8.2.8 The Slavers
8.2.9 The Riddles
9. General Questions
9.1 Where can I find Easter eggs in the game?
9.2 How does one use miracle dispensers?
9.3 What makes the creature grow faster?
9.4 What do I need to do to unlock all the creatures?
9.5 How can I backup my creature?
10. Final Notes
11. Credits
2. INTRODUCTION
3. Yip , like i said (don"t exist)
4. THE BASIC GAMEPLAY
First of all, there is no way to skip the tutorial. By
watching the Forums and various IRC channels, I"d say that
this is a very good feature (the manual is rather weak
anyway).
Second, read the signs.
Third, read the signs.
Always read the friggin" signs! Signs next to houses
contains valuable information about what"s in the house and
how to operate it. Signs in the terrain can contain valuable
information on how to properly train your creature, or small
gameplay tricks, or even hints on how to accomplish certain
goals.
The game teaches you the basic gameplay very well, if you"ll
just have the patience to look, and it will be much easier
than reading a tutorial (and if you are intelligent enough
to appreciate a long detailed tutorial, you have probably
learned your basic gameplay already, so I won"t waste space
writing about it).
I will say this for a reminder, though: Leaving your hand on
an object is
Very useful (for example over a construction site where
you"ll find out the exact amount of wood needed for
completition or over a village totem to find out how many
people your village has room for).
The sections below will go into a bit more detail. Note that
these sections try to cover both extremes. That is, if you
want a white, or even rainbow colored creature or hand, read
how to play good. If you want a black creature with horns,
and a red hand, read how to play evil. If you just want to
stay neutral, mix in a little of both.
4.1 PLAYING GOOD
Now this is a challenge. Here you will need to spend a lot
of time managing your villages, which is an utter pain. But
you cannot neglect your creature either, if you want it to
be good aligned too, and performing the two together can
initially be extremely difficult.
If you train your creature well though, you might be able to
leave it on it"s own for an extended period of time, while
you are away managing your
villages.
Staying good means that you must have the flags of a village
storage raised as low as possible, or even not raised at
all. This is an enormous task in itself. But not only that,
you will have to carefully watch all your worshippers at the
temple shrines so they don"t starve and die, which even
Blackie disapproves of!
You must also act passive, and avoid any killing whatsoever.
This means that taking full control of an island will be
done by sending missionaries, traders, yourself and your
creature to enemy villages to assist and impress them with
miracles, food and wood. The Flying Creatures miracle and
Heal also work fine to generate lots of belief.
It is unconfirmed though, that casting lots of heal on
villagers will cause them to live longer, and thus, in the
long run, increase faster in numbers since less people die
and disappear.
You can train your creature to only heal sick villagers,
though. Zoom in far and listen to pain sounds or watch for
crawling villagers, then target a heal miracle on them and
have the creature watch with the Learning Rope. This may
take time, though, since it"s not often villagers get sick.
Also, don"t overfeed your villagers, since with lots of food
comes the desire to breed, and with the desire to breed
comes the desire to expand,
and soon enough there won"t be any empty spots on the island
to expand upon (much less any forests left).
As a good player, you can also sacrifice at the temple
shrines to get Prayer power, if you want. A shrubbery and
any other plant will work fine. Never try to sacrifice a
stone, though. It will cause damage to your shrine and
scatter your worshippers!
And even if you get attacked by an enemy, you cannot fight
back! Use the shield miracles to protect your villagers,
and try not to have your creature attack another creature
unless it"s wreaking havoc in one of your village. Your
creature may get provoked into a fight as it is.
So if it is so frustrating to play good, what are the
rewards? Well, if you don"t know the answer to that, my bet
is that your creature won"t turn rainbow coloured anytime
soon. Some of the visual effects of playing good are: a
white temple, white hand, white creature, clear skies,
longer days, shorter nights and a rainbow over your temple.
4.2 PLAYING EVIL
First of all, evil isn"t stupid and it isn"t nasty. It"s
sinister and devious. If you kill for fun, sure you are
evil, but you are mainly being blunt, and there"s much worse
you can do than that. Try torturing people with fire
instead, starve them, wreck their homes, play catch with
your creature using villagers or just leave the creature
with the Aggression Leash on in one of your own villages...
Be creative.
Since you can do pretty much anything while being evil, I
won"t dig deep into the details here. I will try to give out
a few usefully tips, though. Being evil will finally let you
ignore feeding the worshippers at your shrines. There are
much better ways of gaining miracle power than dancing.
Sacrificing new born children for example, is much more
effective.
Sacrificing your dead does also work.
If you want to wipe out a village, or atleast cause serious
damage, you can taint a food storage by throwing a toadstool
or poop in it. Some of the visual effects of playing evil
are: a black temple with spikes, red hand with long nails,
black creature which grows horns, red skies, and everlasting
nights.
5. CREATURE TRAINING
Be aware that you can only have ONE creature for each player
profile and that creature will be constant in ALL games you
play using it. It will grow older and remember everything
you have done, no matter how much you load the game or if
you pause your campaign to play a skirmish or multiplayer
game. The only way to reset a creature is to restart your
game. Your creature does not have to be of the same
alignment as you do. The creature can be so good it glows
white, while at the same time, your
Castle is growing spikes. Also note that initially the
Creature Help doesn"t show up in the game, even if you have
it activated in the Options. The first time it will show up
is after you have activated the final golden scroll on the
first island, but it will stay activated after that, even if
you restart a new game or load an earlier save.
If you start an online game or a skirmish game though, the
creature help will also get activated and stay so, at least
until a part of the tutorial kicks in again, whereupon it
will become deactivated (so just save, start skirmish and
then load, to get it back).
5.1 BASIC KNOWLEDGE
In order to develop a healthy creature, you need to know
about it"s vital
statistics. Those are the stats which can be seen when you
focus a creature, and are also the only stats which can kill
it. The vital stats are Damage, Hunger and Tiredness. In
order to develop a well trained creature, you also need to
know about a number of other statistics. These can be found
in the Creature Cave, and though they are not vital, they
still represents some sort of basic need for the creature.
Those stats which are non-vital are Exhaustion, Dehydration,
Strength, Fatness and Poop. In addition to this, there are a
number of trivial stats, which isn"t really important to the
creature, but which may be important to you. These stats are
Alignment and Growth. Further, the creature uses Energy in
order to cast it"s own miracles. All of these stats should
be kept as low as possible, with Energy as the only
exception. Energy gets lower when the creature casts a
miracle. When Energy runs out, it won"t be able to cast
miracles any more and must feed in order to raise the stat
again. Illness and Warmth will be explained at a later
point.
When a vital stat gets maxed out, your creature will
collapse and Regenerate back in it"s pen at your Temple. The
stat will still remain high after that, so you need to take
care of your creature in order to prevent it from collapsing
again. Have your creature collapse too much, and it will
shrink noticeably in size (although it will grow back in
size over time). Note that when a creature collapses, you
may still have a few seconds to try to fix the situation
(heal or feed it), if you are lucky.
Also, the creature will over time forget things, and may
have to relearn
it. The same goes for strength. It will need constant
exercise in order to keep itself fit and keep it"s strength
up.
5.2 BASIC BEHAVIOUR
You should know that the creature knows a number of actions
by instinct. These actions are mostly those it uses to stay
alive, like sleeping, eating, drinking and pooping. But
encouraging or discouraging these actions may have several
different outcomes, which will be explained in a later
section. The creature can also learn a few new actions,
either on it"s own or by copying you. However, the amount of
these actions are not that important. The thing which is
important are the variations of these actions. The creature
does not simply observe you doing something. It observs
exactly what you did, what you used and to what or whom you
did it! It can also learn whole series of actions in a later
stage.
Training a creature is accomplished by encouraging and
discouraging Different variations of actions by either
stroking or slapping the creature accordigly.
The way the creature carries out it"s actions also
determines (or may be determined by) it"s mental state. The
creature may show you how it is feeling if you focus on it
and you can also read alot about what is going on in it"s
mind in the Creature Cave.
If you want your creature to like you more, pay more
attention to you or show you it"s feeling more, just stroke
it when it asks for attention or wants to mess around (but
not too much, since that will only cause the creature to get
distracted and stop to look at you when your hand is near
it). Keep in mind that the creature"s AI is very short-
sighted and not very reflective. It does not understand alot
of effects of it"s actions so if there is a bad side-effect
on a particular action (either by accident or all the time)
only slap it if you do not want it to continue doing that
action anymore. For example, the creature always throws an
object over it"s shoulder when it doesn"t know what to do
with it. If that object damages anything (stone on a house)
or becomes damaged (villager down a cliff) the creature
don"t know how to associate that event with what it just
did. So there is no way to punish it for that, as it doesn"t
count as an action (neither can you slap the creature for
noticing either, since that is a separate action). You
simply have to wait until the creature has learned to
properly deal with the object, whereupon it will pick up and
put down the object properly.
5.3 BASIC LEARNING
If you want the perfect creature, hang around on the
tutorial island Until it has learned every possible thing to
be learned there (some spells will be unavailable as well
as certain methods for helping villagers). Your villages on
the tutorial island won"t have any high demands (since you
can"t build anything) and as long as you don"t active the
final golden scroll, there is no time limit. Note that it is
rather hard to become immensely good during the tutorial
islands. This is probably due to not all features being
activated yet. For those of you interested in AI, the game
supports both supervised and unsupervised learning, as well
as reinforcement learning. A decision tree is also used to
select which action a creature will perform. The first
method of learning is simply to show your creature what to
do. Leash it with the Learning Rope and carry out the exact
action you want it to perform. Make sure that it is watching
you, or your actions will have little effect.
Note that you shouldn"t stroke the creature for simply
noticing what you
Just did (it will point in the direction of your action, and
then look at
you). The real reward should come first after it has
properly copied your
action. Sometimes the creature will understand immediately
and copy you, sometimes, it takes forever to get it to do
the same thing as you.
A second method of learning is to let the creature find
things out by itself. But, if you let the creature wander
around and it accidently manages to learn something you
didn"t want it to know about, you will have to spend a lot
of time supressing that behaviour, since nothing can be
"unlearned" once found out. In order to properly control a
creature"s behaviour you need to catch it at a precise
moment in order to get a precise response out of it. If you
are too late in praising or punishing your creature, you may
affect a whole different action. This means that you may
need to anticipate what your creature is going to do. Get to
know your creature! This is the only way to be safe. You
sometimes also have to plan ahead. When you start out, the
creature will only perform basic stuff. Later on, you will
want it to carry out more complex series of actions, and if
you haven"t taught it the basic stuff properly, it can be
too late when one of the basic things it got wrong is a part
of a more complex series of actions (for example, when
picking up a tree is a part of the being generous to
villagers action in order to resupply the storage).
Though the game says that handing the creature a one-shot
miracle will cause it to instantly cast it, it has to be
trained to cast those too (you will have to slap it for
eating or loosing the miracles). Note that your creature
may see more detail than you are aware of. If you cast, for
example, heal on healthy villagers and water on grown trees,
the creature
may do so too. A better way is to only cast heal on
unhealthy villagers and tiny trees. All of the above applies
for fighting too. Tell your creature to move around a lot,
and it will do it by itself after awhile. The same goes for
concentrating attacks on special body parts (note which
targeted body part carries out the different attacks you
want it to perform more).
5.4 SPECIFIC CREATURE ACTIONS
The previous sections were meant to be very general.
Anything you read in
Those sections can be applied to any action no matter what
creature you have. And if you can"t get your creature to do
what you want, try again until it grasps the concept or
change your method of teaching. Please don"t mail me simply
stating that you can"t get your creature to do what you want
it to. It"s not the creature who hasn"t tried it"s best,
it"s you.
5.4.1 THE URGES OF FEEDING AND SLEEPING
***************** BUG WARNING!*****************************
When the creature eats fish by itself, it will lower that
creature"s alignment! I do hope that this is a bug which
will be fixed, since fish is the absolutely best source of
food (and you cannot make diciple herders on your own in
order to make sure proper meat doesn"t run out). Your
creature also seems to get hungrier whenever it eats fish,
which is fishy...
************************************************************
First of all, getting it to eat and sleep on it"s own is
rather easy. However, trying to control how fast it gets
hungry and how fast it gets tired can be a nightmare.
Sometimes, the effects of slapping and stroking can seem to
be totally at random. In this section, you will find some
helpful tips, although you should still be very careful,
since they will not always work. Only slap or stroke your
creature a little bit a time, in order to minimize the
damage of a wrong outcome.
Since the creature will initially eat anything, sleep
anywhere and poop everywhere, basic training goal of basic
training will mostly be to control these behaviours. You may
have noticed that discouraging the creature from being just
generally tired may either make it sleep less, lie down less
on that location or become less tired. The outcome may seem
to be selected totally at random. Careful consideration is a
must before punishing or praising the creature. For example,
when it sleeps you have to factor in several things. How
sleepy was it? Was the creature exhausted or low on energy?
When did it go to sleep and where did it lie down? Your
creature will also initially eat any moveable object.
However, it has a built in learning factor here, since it
will puke up anything that isn"t good for it (grain which
isn"t ripe, for example).
The creature can also eat on by it"s own initiative or by
command (rubbing the belly when given food). But before you
slap or stroke the creature for eating, there are a also
number of factors you must consider. Consider what it is
eating. Is it a food source which is good for him or not?
Does the source replenish itself fast or slow? Is it
stealing from someone? Is it eating because of hunger or
greed? To get a creature to eat more of a certain type of
food, just hand feed it with the food you want to increase
it"s apetite for and stroke the creature after it has
finished eating. This will always make it appreciate that
type of food more (note that this isn"t an exception to the
above rule since you carry out the action here and then
reward the creature for the effect). And yes, overfeeding
will cause it to poop more and get fat. To get it thinner
again, just keep it hungry a bit longer and don"t feed it as
much for a period of time, and it"s weight will go down.
Water is lacking a graph in the creature info (although you
can read it"s
dehydration level in the Creature Cave), but it is not that
important since the creature always knows how to drink and
will do so when thirsty (and since it"s not that often, you
shouldn"t need to adjust it"s drinking habits if you don"t
feel you simply have to). There doesn"t seem to be any way
to bring a creature water. Finally, fish would be the
recommended food for any creature, since fish regenerate
well without any care and it won"t be considered stealing
from the village. Cattle and other animals regenerate much
slower and can run out if you"re not careful (and though
herders help, there is a strange lack of a herding disciple
in the game).
5.4.2 THE EATING OF VILLAGERS
This can be considered a special case of feeding. Now you
either want to
Or don"t want to have the creature eat villagers, depending
on you alignment. An untrained creature, even if it is a Cow
or a Sheep, will sooner or later eat a villager if you have
it wander the village hungry. Initially, this can work to
your advantage if you keep a close eye on your creature.
When the creature picks up a village, immediately focus it.
If it shows you that it is hungry, slap it silly. If it
doesn"t show you it"s intentions, unfocus and quickly click
on the ground next to it to make it drop the villager.
Stroke it for that action, if you wish. You can also slap
the creature after it has eaten a villager, but only if you
get the a Help Text saying that "your creature will eat more
of that stuff" (if you slap it without that text appearing,
you may affect another action). Also, stroke the creature if
you want it to continue eating villagers. Although, remember
that an empty village belongs to nobody, and that strength
comes in numbers.
And note that even if you have taught your creature not to
eat people From YOUR villages, there is nothing which stops
it from eating people from other, neutral or enemy owned,
villages. You"ll have to teach it how to behave to other
villagers separately.
5.4.3 THE ART OF THROWING OBJECTS
--------------- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION! -------------------
You can give, or throw (if you have taught it to catch) the
creature a much larger object than it can normally be
commanded to pick up by itself. Does anyone know why this
is?
Throwing (as with kicking) seems to be an aggressive action,
so if you want a passive creature, slap it for throwing
stuff. The exception is when it is throwing trees or food
into the village storage, which doesn"t beem to count
neither as a throw or an aggressive action (same goes for
when it"s playful).
The biggest question seems to be how to get the creature to
throw stones.
But if you are looking to increase the strength of the
creature, remember that the sign said that the creature
needed only to be carrying stones. To exercise it, simply
give your creature a stone and action click on a piece of
ground away from it and walk or run it around the island for
a hile. The creature"s strength will increase over time
because of this. Anyway, if your creature can copy you
throwing stones, all is well, and it should be praised for
it. Note that the creature will take notice of where you aim
your stone and even if you fetch the stone back or not. If
the creature refuses to copy your actions, things may get
more complicated. Action clicking on an object with a
leashed creature is tated to be the command of getting it to
pick the object up. However, his doesn"t always work with
stones. A reason of this may be that the stone is too large.
But if you crush the stone into smaller pieces while the
creature is watching, it may very well copy that action
instead the next time it is told to pick up a stone, so be
careful.
A better course of action is to crush a number of stones far
away from the creature and have it travel there only after
they are the appropriate size. I personally can"t see any
use in throwing an object other than a stone, so when the
creature tries that, just slap it to keep it from doing that
again. Also, don"t make the mistake of praising it too
early. f you want it to throw a rock, don"t praise it
immediately after it"s picked the rock up, since it will
most definitely eat the rock instead. The creature can also
be trained to catch stones (and other objects...
Such as fireballs). Have it in a playfull mode and practice
with the beach ball. Just hrow the ball at it at the
appropriate height and it should try to catch it after
awhile. Then move on to other objects you want it to catch.
Sometimes, double-clicking on a spot on the ground when the
creature is holding a stone will make it throw the stone
there, but I haven"t nailed down the details around this
yet, as it may run to that spot also.
5.4.4 THE ASSISTING IN VILLAGE DUTIES
---------------------- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION! ------------
Is it just me, or does the creature always seem to forget
how to use the
village store?
------------------------------------------------------------
******* BUG WARNING!********************************
If your creature picks up a villager who has just died and
turned into a
skeleton, the skeleton will come to life and walk around the
village! This may be a side-effect of the healing effect
being picked up by a creature instills, but it"s still a
bug.
And if your creature decides to eat a Dead villager, it will
count asHaving killed a person! Also, some people do say
that the creature can make diciples other than breeders, but
I have seen NO evidence of this. The creature always seem to
create a diciple breeder if it cuddles a villager (even if
there is nobody around to "mate" with, and even if there
is, action clicking on the ground to make the creature drop
the villager will NOT produce a breeder). It must be a bug,
or have a really weird explanation.
If you play the game by micromanaging your villages, you
will almost certainly spend such a large amount of time
doing it that the creature automatically will adapt your
actions over time. However, if you do have trouble teaching
it to help villagers, have the creature leashed to you using
the Learning Rope, while you perform the actions you want it
to adopt. Performing the same actions in different ways may
also help. For example, the food storage can be filled by
either dropping, for example, rain on it or by casting a
food miracle on it. Note that having a creature leashed to a
building won"t automatically make thecreature
interact with the building unless you have taught it what to
do. In fact, it seems to be a rather poor use of the leash
(except for a well trained creature, but even then,
unrestricting it"s area of movement will most definitely
have it moving out of the village sooner or later). And, if
you do have your creature leashed to a building in the
village, make
sure you unleash it when it needs food and sleep, which it
otherwise might not prioritise. An area of trouble seems to
be if you want to have your creature deliver food to the
worshippers at your temple. This is very hard for it to
copy, since there doesn"t seem to be a clear distinction
between the different parts of the temple to your creature
(it seems to regard the tower, the surrounding shrines and
it"s pen as one and the same).
If you have taught your creature the Food miracle, however,
the best way
Is simply to leash it to the food desire flag on a temple
shrine and have
It figure out by itself that it should cast a miracle on the
worshippers. Remember to stroke the creature when it gets it
right. This method is very effective. Also, if your creature
is kind to the villagers, it may pick one up from time to
time, pat the villager a little and then put it back down.
That villager will then have a very high chance of turning
into a diciple breeder! This can happen very often with a
creature which is kind to villagers, so be watchful of your
creature so your villagers won"t cause overbreeding which is
a nightmare. So, if you want your creature to continue being
nice to villagers, but not create that many breeders, leash
it the moment it picks up a villager. Then action click by
it"s feet to make it put the villager down and make the
creature do something more usefull instead. The best thing
is to assign all diciples yourself. Remember which villagers
you put to work far from your village, and seek them out
when you have your creature leashed to the Learning Rope.
Diciples who work far from home have to travel great
distances and will have less time to go to the storage for
food or go home and sleep very often and because of this,
their health will deteriorate. So, cast Heal miracles on
these villagers and make sure your creature notices it. Then
give it a big reward when it casts Heal on a villager
itself. The deaths in the village will get lower over time
if your creature learns this well.
5.4.5 THE IMPORTANCE OF HOUSEKEEPING
********************* BUG WARNING! *************************
People in the forums are suggesting that crapping is evil
(you can"t imagine how hard it was to type that sentence...
my mouth hurts from laughing). It sounds like another
alignment bug to me.
************************************************************
An untrained creature will have a rather high urge to poop
anytime and anywhere. It is uncertain how the villagers
react to having poop all over
The place, but I suspect that they might not approve. You
can actually teach your creature to stop pooping entirely.
To do this, slap it immediately when you first witness the
creature pooping against something.
Hopefully, the creature will still need to poop, and will
show you this By farting. Slap it again, but this time give
it a good go. Sometimes, this is enough to have it give up
ever wanting to poop again. (Though it"s unknown if this
will have any damaging effect on the creature.) Although it
has been suggested that you should train your creature to
poop in the fields, it seems to be of little use.
Personally, I"d rather use the Water miracle, as it is much
more effective and pleasant.
6. VILLAGE MANAGEMENT
***************** BUG WARNING! ****************************
If you drop too much food in a temple shrine, the ENTIRE
PILE will be Gobbled up a second the next time a worshipper
decides to eat. Since you don"t get any Prayer Energy for
this, a sacrifice of the leftover food hasn"t been made, so
it would seem that this indeed is a bug!
The expand desire flag is also unreliable. Once you create a
construction
Site for a building, the flag will slide down and disappear
completely, but once the building is finished, it will pop
right up to the top again! A similar behaviour can be seen
on some fields, if you empty all food and sometimes when you
water them (field height will then jump up and down). Seems
like some graphical bugs to me, but still...
************************************************************
Though handling the creature might be a large part of the
game, next to managing a village, getting a creature trained
is a piece of cake. If you
Want to play really good, satisfying all the needs of the
villagers will
Become so time consuming that you might find it"s suddenly
all you do. Now, I always knew that this was true in the
real world, but it"s nice to
Find that they accurately portrayed this in Black & White
too: Animals are smarter than people! Humans are the most
annoying thing in the game. They are never satisfied, always
want more, they devour natural resources in seconds, breed
like rabbits and spread like locust. I will complain a lot
about expanding and breeding desires below, and since it is
vital to expand in order to gain more influence and power,
you might be puzzled as to why it"s so bad. Well, the thing
is that if you are unlucky, villagers will want to expand
until there is no more room on the entire island, not even
for forests!
And forests are life. Without them, you will die.
A tip to keep easier track of all the villagers is to use
the "S" key, as
described in the manual, to activate small information
bubbles above each
villager. And note that villagers, although seemingly
originating from primitive cultures, may live until they are
well over eighty years old. Also understand that villagers
have their own unique personalities and attributes. If you
notice alot of people in your village "chilling out", you
may have a problem. Put these villagers to work immediately,
to prevent disillusion. Good diciples for these kind of
villagers would be fishermen, foresters or traders, since
they would have to walk alot, and not have time to sit down
much. Do monitor the health of people who work far away from
the village storage though, as lack of food and sleep will
affect their well being. And be aware that breeding one lazy
villager with another may produce an even lazier offspring.
Now the manual fails to highlight alot of things about how
demanding the villagers really are. In fact, there is a
whole evil circle involved in managing villages. First of
all, villagers will need food to survive. But too much food
will induce a desire for breeding, and satisfying breeding
will induce a desire for expanding from the offspring, which
in turn will require wood and thus raise the desire for
that. And after all the new villagers has new homes, they
must feed again and so the food desire once again goes up.
This, if not countered, will spiral your way towards your
doom. The first problem you encounter is usually that your
initial village has a maximum expansion desire. Now, to
expand, you will need wood, and you can"t just keep giving
the villagers wood forever, since they will become
disillusioned. You will need forests near your village, and
a lot of them. Training your creature to water trees is a
very good idea as a couple of disciple foresters in a
village with a high forest desire can devour a huge forest
in no time.
Another problem with trees is that the stupid villagers cut
down the smallest trees first, which won"t yield as much
wood and which will prevent the forest from growing at it"s
fastest rate. Always water the small trees to counter this!
Also note that since the buildings you construct vary
depending on the current needs of the villagers and the
location your are trying to place it, you can sometimes get
a better building by trying a couple of different places
(this can be important with bigger houses, since they all
cost two scaffolds, but house different amounts of
villagers). The workshop is a very good target for the wood
miracle, with no risk of disillusion, since the villagers
won"t deliver wood to it by themselves unless you assign
disciple craftsmen to it (which you definetly should do).
Construction sites are also equally good targets. This leads
to the second problem. The villagers won"t deliver food to
your temple shrines no matter what you do! This is a
vertiable management nightmare since the shrines are the
source of your Prayer Energy. Temple shrines don"t work like
the village storage either. You cannot dump a large amount
of food on a shrine and expect it to last. A large amount of
food dumped in a shrine will last nearly exactly as long as
a small amount of food. Instead, keep your deliveries
regular and don"t concentrate on the amount of food, but
rather on whether the flag is up or not. The food desire
flag on a shrine should NEVER even be visible! You can get
the creature to deliver for you, but it can only carry small
amounts initially so it"s a rather ineffective use of your
creature. Teach it to use the Food miracle instead and leash
it do the food desire flag on a shrine. This way, the
creature will automatically try to lower the flag using what
it has learnt.
Note that leashing the creature to the shrine altar won"t
accomplish Anything (except if you have an evil creature, in
which case it may start
Sacrificing villagers). Worshippers produce Prayer Energy by
draining their own lives, so they will also need healing
from time to time, or they will die at the site (even if the
flag which indicates the need for sleep isn"t visible at
all). Next up is breeding. This is the worst thing that can
happen, since when villagers decide they want to breed, it
will affect all other desires too, as mentioned above.
Breeding doesn"t cost you anything to fix though, but the
consequences of too much offspring will. Note that male
breeders will impregnate more than one woman. A female
breeder will only produce offspring once every 9 months
(about one real minute). Select the gender of the breeder
according to your expanding plans for your village and your
current needs.
Finally we have food. This is the least of the problems, yet
it still is
A problem, since even though you can have one field per ten
villagers, a
Couple of diciple fishermen and a good supply of grain
coming into the storage regularly, if the storage isn"t
extremely well loaded, the villagers will complain. Food
miracles cast on the storage by either you or your creature
in addition to many fields will remedy the situation,
though. But be careful, overfeeding will cause the desire to
breed to increase, and you"ll soon get worse problems than
just disillusion on your hands. Civic building desire is the
only thing which isn"t a problem, since only three kinds
exist, and after you"ve built them, the villagers will be
satisfied. The crйche, which keeps children in one location,
can also serve another purpose. Usually, the kids just run
around after their mothers until they grow up, but if you
drop a couple of rocks outside the building there is a large
chance that they will start dancing around them and make
Artefacts out of them.
The Artefacts can then be used to convert other villages by
dumping them
There instead (after they have started glowing and showing
your symbol).
A balance between expansion and breeding can be achieved
though, but you
Will probably sweat and swear a lot before you find it. One
way to do it is to acommodate all needs but breeding. The
villagers will then die without leaving any families behind,
and houses will start to empty. When that happens, you can
put a couple of breeders to work without having to expand or
watch out for other increasing desires until the houses are
filled up again. Check when the amount of children in the
crйche roughly matches the number of empty positions in your
houses and convert all (or most) of the disciple breeders to
something else then.
Note that the amount of people the village can hold, as
shown by the Totem will NOT be the same as the number of
empty rooms in the houses. The houses only show how many
adults they can house! The children capacity of a building
can"t be seen. Villagers can ask for more homes even if
there seems to be enough space, since there can be a child
who is homeless. Also, a building can be moved as long as
the scaffold is visible. If you want to change the location
of a building, damage is badly enough, and the scaffold will
appear and be moveable again. Placing buildings too close
can also have the effect that your creature won"t be able to
reach certain areas, since it can"t fit between the houses!
(Until it gets so large that it can walk over houses, that
is.) Reduce or Enlarge Creature spells can temporarily
counter the situation, though.
Note that if you need help with a certain desire in the
village, you can
actually leash your creature to an individual desire flag,
and it will try to assist in the best possible way it knows.
Finally, the scroll in your Temple which contains village
statistics only displays the total of all your villages. To
see statistics like availible space and diciples for a
single village, you will have to run around to every village
the knock on houses and look at Totems yourself.
7. ISLAND SPECIFIC TIPS AND SECRETS
Below I will try to give a general overview of the islands,
with some strategy tips and some tips on how conquer each
island. There will also be notes about gold scrolls and
solutions to secret island quests (those without scrolls).
Note that I will write the general tips first, and only dig
into the secret stuff in the last couple of paragraphs, so
there should be minimal spoilers on the first couple of
lines on each island.
7.1 THE FIRST ISLAND
*********************** BUG WARNING!***********************
After a while on island one, Whitey will always say that you
killed someone! This happens when an Actor turned Vagrant
Start dies (press "S" to see their titles). Usually, it is
the Singing Stone guy who dies of old age after some time,
but all the other Actors eventually die too if you wait long
enough (except the Stone Cutter, it seems). Naturally, you
shouldn"t have to take the blame for this, so it"s
considered a bug for now.
***********************************************************
Since this is the tutorial island, all the features of the
game aren"t accessible. But on the other hand, the demands
placed on you here areExtremely low, so it is a very good
place to hone your creature training skills and also teach
the creature every miracle on the island. There is no time
limit on how long you can stay here. But, there"s also a
drawback. Since not everything in the game can be accessed
yet, you may not be able to teach your creature everything
you want. You can, however, save the game and play a
skirmish for awhile, and then load and take your creature
back to the island with all it"s new gained knowledge. You
will have to do certain gold scroll quests in order to get a
creature, but don"t do the last one (the one the Guide
creature warns you about) if you
Want to hang out on the island. Note that no quest should be
of any trouble here, since the camera will always zoom to
show you any important places of the quest, and both Whitey
and Blackie will give you hints and tips. Also, the best way
to help the farmer woman is to simply drop the sick brother
by her. Wrecking her house is evil, but you can do better
than that! Kill the brother and then drop the corpse by her.
Or even worse, trash the house, kill the sister and drop
her corpse by him (he"ll then die of shock). When you decide
to activate the last gold scroll, make sure you stack up on
one-shot miracles (by picking them off the dispensers and
dropping them) and anything else you want to take with you,
since you can drop it all in the vortex when it opens and it
will be there on the next island. Remember to bring all your
villagers too!
Note that the natural way to complete the Ogre quest would
be after the
Piper quest, but if you do it the other way around, the
improved miracle
Dispenser you get as a reward will be given after the Piper
instead.
When you finally leave the island, make sure your creature
is trained And ready to handle itself, since you may not
have much time to spend with it on island two (the demands
of the villagers there are bound to keep you busy for long
periods of time).
7.2 THE SECOND ISLAND
****************** BUG WARNING! ****************************
You can focus and feed (for example) other creatures than
your own! This may be another of those very strange design
decisions, but one I can"t figure out at all. This also
reveals an embarrassing fact about the enemy AI in the game:
Creatures belonging to other gods have 100% hunger and
thirst without collapsing! Also, the time (and thus
distance) an AI god can reach out and act outside it"s area
of influence might also be questionable...
************************************************************
Note that the tutorial isn"t quite over when you first
arrive on island
two. You still can"t construct buildings yet, even though
your villagers will want them. Be patient, though, since you
will soon be taught how to. In the meantime, it would be
wise to teach your creature how to water forests, since
they are so scarce on this island that BOTH of the other
gods will steal trees from you! Also, you are probably
meant to learn how to micromanage villages on this island,
since you absolutely have to! The stupid villagers won"t
lift a finger except for doing massive breeding and
devastation of forests. In fact, the closest primaeval
forest to the village will usually be devoured in a matter
of minutes, and there is no way to get it back. Use the
Water miracle on the surviving trees quickly, in order to
regenerate as much trees as possible, and get your creature
to help you! Also, once small trees pop up, target them
instead of the larger trees and your forest will grow even
faster.
Once you do get a workshop and the ability to construct
buildings, note that you will need to expand initially to
get all the villagers from island one into houses. It is
also alright to expand a bit further, since it will give you
more power, but watch out so you don"t run out of space to
build new homes (it can happen, if you don"t take control
over their desires). If your expansion does get out of
control, do everything in your power to keep forests
growing, since without them you will be doomed. Also, when
you have managed to house all the villagers you brought with
you from the first island, you will get the knowledge of the
Forest miracle. Because of all the lazy villagers on this
island, you will have to keep a steady amount of diciples to
get anything done. To be able to do this, you will need a
good memory and a keen eye. Because, when a diciple dies,
they won"t transfer their knowledge over to their offspring,
and thus, when you notice that the diciple count is
dwindling on the scroll in your Temple, you must zoom around
over every village to find out where it was that one of your
diciples died. In order to be able to cast your own miracles
and start using the Totem in your village center, activate
the first couple of golden scroll as soon as possible. When
you reach the right golden scroll (the one where you get
taught how to use the gestures), Khazar will want to you
impress a village. Note that you do not have to take over
the village, you only have to impress them until the point
where Khazar leaves. You can then go back to your first
village again, and continue managing that until you feel
comfortable with it. You do not have to worry so much about
breeding initially in the first village, since the food
levels will be low and you can keep them that way by
constantly taking food from the storage to supply your
temple shrines with (or divert the villagers to other duties
instead).
Khazar will also urge you to conquer Lethys" villages far
too soon, in
My opinion. Make sure your own villages are well balanced
first! So, this is the first island where you have to take
over other villages. Depending on whether you are playing
good or evil, choose your desired method of converting the
other villages, but it won"t require much belief on this
island... it"s harder to keep them satisfied (if you are
evil, you only
need to keep them, which is easier). However, there is a
hidden quest near Lethys" first village. It"s a tree puzzle,
which will grant you a Flying Creatures miracle dispenser if
it"s solved, which in turn will make it much easier to
impress the village. (To solve the puzzle, note that each
moved tree changes all trees around it. So, work your way
around the edges and have it so your last move it to change
the middle tree.)
Note the amount of lazy people in the village closest to
your first one.
When you take over that village, deal with them in a way you
feel is appropriate.
There is also an unclaimed Greek village near Khazar"s
realm, where there
Will be a person sacrificing children in order to keep the
villagers constantly youthfull. He will curse if you pick
him up, and if you do kill him, all the people in that
village will die.
Once you take over the first village from the enemy god,
Lethys, you are
on your own. Lethys will rarely attack you, though, he will
mainly cast protection on his own villages if you try to
convert them. He will, however attack your creature with his
arsenal of miracles if it gets too near a village of his.
Make sure your creature can both cast Water AND Heal on
itself (this may actually have to be taught during an
attack).
Also note that you cannot damage or destroy his temple until
ALL of his villages are either neutral or under your
control. And for disposing temples, throwing flaming
boulders (heated with fireballs) are very effective.
Casting a Teleport miracle outside far away villages and
next to your Temple is also a very good idea, to save people
the long walk to and from the worship sites (especially
during the time that they are being built).
7.3 THE THIRD ISLAND
******************* BUG WARNING! ***************************
Some people have complained about huge saving and loading
times when They reach the third island (or play a very long
skirmish game). Well, hopefully this will be optimised in a
patch by Lionhead, but in the meantime, if you have an
additional 200mb of disk space, copy the Audio folder from
the CD to it"s corresponding folder on your hard drive. Note
that you do this on your own risk! There is no guarantee
that your game will work 100% after doing this.
************************************************************
This island is a bit trickier, since it requires a lot of
belief to convert villages, and they are quite far apart.
Your initial area of influence is also rather small, but it
will as usual grow with more belief. The main problem here
seems to be a pack of wolves which attacks your second
village. There are, however, several method of disposing
them. Lightning and fire miracles work if you want to target
practice. You can also set fire to the forest they run
through, if you aim carefully. This will take care of most
of the wolves.
But you can also use your godly powers to freeze time
(ehm... "pause" that is) and pick each wolf up and use it
for food for villagers by dropping them in a village
storage. (Alt+1 and Alt+2 also works for slowing or speeding
up the game.) Also, don"t underestimate your enemy, even
though he is down to his last village. He will sacrifice
everything in sight to get Prayer Energy!
7.4 THE FOURTH ISLAND
----------------------- IMPORTANT NOTICE! ------------------
I personally haven"t got this far in the game since I want
to find out everything there is about the other islands
first, so this section is purely made out of contributions
and small information nuggets I dug out of forums.
------------------------------------------------------------
The fourth island is actually the first island, but
everything has been shot to hell. Nemesis cursed the land
with thunder storms, fireballs and a blood red sky. All is
guarded by three Gardian Stones, each one assigned to power
one of the island"s curses. The most imposing problem here
is that you are being bombarded by fireballs. Note that
these can be temporarily avoided using shields around your
village or by catching them (one tactic is to catch a
fireball in your hand and then simply absorb any other
incoming ones). Note that shields require alot of Prayer
Energy to stay up (if you run out, they will dissapear, just
as the Forest miracle), but there is a Spiritual Shield
miracle dispenser near your Temple. These one-shot miracles
can also be activated, and then shaken off in order to
transfer their inherent power to your Temple instead!
To stop the fireballs permanently, you need to solve a
puzzle. This puzzle must be unlocked by conquering one of
the villages first (it"s the Japanese village next to the
Gardian Stone with the physical and spiritual shield around
it). A good tactic here is to bring a couple of Artefacts
from previous islands to drop in the village for a good
amount of belief. The bell puzzle itself is very simple and
it"s always the same one so even if you fail the first few
times, you can always try again. After that, you probably
want to stop the thunder storms. That stone is
Guarded by the ogre named Sleg (remember him?) and this
time, a fight is
unavoidable. Defeat him and the thunder storms will stop.
The last thing to fix is the blood red sky. You have to
bring a woman to a Nemesis believer named Adam. The woman is
named Keiko (although it will only say Actor if you press
"S") and is his wife. Nemesis said that she would die
if her husband would stop beleiving in him, though you can
also kill her to solve the quest.
Regarding the cursed village with the Skeleton tribe, you
need to raise
The buried village Totems (yes, there are two of them) to
their full height. To do this, you need extend your area of
influence over the village and have your creature raise one
of the Totems AT THE SAME TIME as you raise the other! If
your creature knows how to use Totems, this shouldn"t be too
hard. Note that the Skeleton tribe will die out cause of old
age, which may (or may not) seem strange, but it does not
make any difference in completing the quest.
7.5 THE FIFTH ISLAND
******************** BUG WARNING! **************************
Many people have reported this bug: If you complete the
game, the curse
On your creature will still be in effect and there is no way
to make it go away! Your creature"s alignment will reverse
and it will constantly shrink in all network, internet and
skirmish games afterwards!
Until the issue has been cleared or a patch is out, I
recommend people
NOT to venture into the fifth island! Play skirmish or on
the internet and train your creature in the meantime.
************************************************************
8. SILVER SCROLL SOLUTIONS
The silver scrolls are the mini-quests of Black & White.
They"re not essential to finishing the game, but they may
grant rewards if they are solved properly. Most quests have
good and evil solutions to them. Below, both ways and their
rewards will be described as detailed as possible.
Note that I write more or less abstract tips in the first
couple of paragraphs, and then I become increasingly
detailed in my descriptions. This is to reduce spoilers for
those who just want some basic tips. Some of the scrolls
must also be activated before they show up on the islands.
The triggers for these are usually when you take over a
certain village or when you reach a certain point on an
island, so they are not worth mentioning here.
8.1 QUESTS ON THE FIRST ISLAND
The first island is the tutorial island, and thus, it"s
quests don"t have
time limits and you get very good tips on how to complete
them. Miracle dispensers are the most common reward here.
8.1.1 THROWING STONES
Location: Near the mountain, next to the shore near your
temple.
Good Solution
-------------
Do as Whitey and Blackie suggests and throw a bunch of
stones at the rock
lying on top of the pillar. Just watch out so you don"t hit
the house which lies in the same area, or it"s inhabitant
for that matter. If you are lucky, having your creature
leashed to you with the Learning Rope while trying to score
a hit might actually learn him how to throw stones into the
water or on land and trees, which will make it grow
stronger.
Note that on other islands, stones won"t be limitless as in
this quest, so it might be a good idea to return the stones
to their original position, and hope the creature copies
this course of action too. There is also a secret to this
quest! If you keep throwing stones on the pillar, it will
drop Water mircales. You can keep this up for some time
before it stops (note that the limitless stone supply will
end once you started doing other qusts).
Good Reward: Chest with a Beach Ball (and secret one-shot
Water miracles).
Evil Solution
*************
You can, of course, have your creature leashed to you with
the aggressive
leash too. In that case, when you throw stones at the
pillar, the creature will more likely aim at the house, it"s
inhabitant or at some trees. If you do destroy the hut, you
can rebuild it to get a rather hefty belief award.
Naturally, throwing villagers to try to knock the stone off
the pillar will also work.
Evil Reward: Chest with a Beach Ball (and secret one-shot
Water miracles).
8.1.2 THE SAVIOR
Location: By the shore with the fishing spots near your
temple.
Good Solution
-------------
Simply do as Whitey says and have your creature pick them
up. This is easily accomplished by leashing it with the
compassion leash and action clicking on the drowning men.
When the creature has reached the men and picked one up,
quickly click on the beach next to the woman who gave you
the quest. Hopefully, your creature will drop the fisherman
and wait. If you have an inexperienced creature, the danger
here is that he will either throw or eat the fishermen if
you take too long time between the pickup and destination
drop commands.
Good Reward: Creature Strength miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Letting them drown, or even throwing in the farmer woman who
gave you The quest is are sure evil way of finishing off
this task. The fishermen will
Also be excellent food for your creature.
Evil Reward: Creature Strength miracle dispenser.
8.1.3 THE LOST FLOCK
Location: In the village near the crйche.
Good Solution
-------------
This is the first tricky quest in the game. In order to
return the sheep
To the farmer, you have to find them. This isn"t easy at
first, since they are very small, and you have to look
closely to the ground to spot them. However, you can also
listen carefully when you search the land. When you are
close to a sheep, you will hear it, sometimes before you see
it.
The farmer requires five sheep, but there are more than that
on the island... And if you do return all the sheep, he will
reward you by letting you select a Sheep as your own
creature!
The locations of all the sheep are the following:
* Next to the stone sculptor"s house.
* Behind the huge gate.
* Fenced in with some pigs in a farm outside the village.
* On a mountaintop, close to the hermit.
* Amongst some trees, close to the hermit (where the sick
man was).
* Near a singing stone by the sea, close to the fishing
spots.
* By the pillar where you practice stone throwing.
* Under some palm trees next to the beach where you started.
* On the mountainside near the palm trees where you started.
Good Reward: Stack of Food (and the Sheep creature if you
return ALL
sheep!)
Evil Solution
*************
Kill the sheep, feed them to your creature, kill the farmer,
wreck his
house... Use your sinister little imagination.
Evil Reward: Nothing!
8.1.4 THE SINGING STONES (1)
Location: Near the shore outside the second village.
Good Solution
-------------
Not only will you need to find the singing stones here, but
you will need
To find the CORRECT stones and place them in the right
order. (The singing stones are the teardrop shaped rocks
with a rune on.)
The right order is simply a musical scale, going from the
lower tones to
The higher. Action click the a singing stone to hear it"s
tone, and then
Place it on one of the dark spots to have it to join in the
playing of the scale with the other stones.
You can pick up and rearrange any of the stones you find,
but note that
The three stones which are already in place cannot be moved,
but also doesn"t need to, since they already are in the
right spot.
There also exists three false stones on the island. They are
recognized
By their low pitch tones, which doesn"t belong to the scale.
The locations for the correct stones are the following:
* Next to the circle of the singing stones.
* Behind the graveyard in the village.
* In the hermit"s quarry.
* Amongst some trees, close to the hermit (where the sick
man was).
* In the mountain backside, close to the starting beach.
Good Reward: Food micracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Well, I don"t know if the stones can be destroyed, and not
doing anything
In this case won"t complete the quest. I guess you could try
to destroy the hut of the caretaker of the stones, if you
feel that it will accomplish something.
Evil Reward: Nothing!
8.1.5 THE EXPLORERS
Location: By the shore behind the huge gates.
Good Solution
-------------
First of all, it has been said that taking food out of a
village storage may be an evil act, but for this mission, it
seems to be overlooked. Whitey"s comment upon completing the
quest might also imply that he wanted them to stay (he says
that he "hates goodbyes"...) but it"s the only way to get
rewarded in this quest. So, you need to supply them with
what they want. Trees will do you no good, as they need
"prepared wood". This has to be taken from the storage or
from any stack of wood.
Next, they want grain. A field or storage will provide that.
Note that it may be evil to take food from villagers and use
it on anything outside the village. If you don"t want to
risk that, use fish instead, since fish transforms into
grain when you pick it up. Finally, they need meat. There
are several options for the meat, but if you drop a sheep by
them, they will say that it has "a lot of uses", which the
don"t say if you drop any other animal.
Note that I have had several kinky references to syphilis on
that above
Sheep comment. Has nobody considered the fact that you get
wool from a sheep? Just make sure you have completed the
sheep farmer"s quest before you give away a sheep, or you
won"t be able to finish it perfectly. A cow is a good
substitute for a sheep. You can also drop a woman by them
when they ask for "meat". Since it sounds like they have
good intentions, I believe this is a good bonus. You can
also give them additional men as crew or a child for
scrubbing the decks. (If you accidently kill one of them,
you can also drop a male villager by them to replace the
dead crewmember.)
Being kind to the emigrants will also let you help them on
island five, where you will receive an extra village and the
Polar Bear creature if you help them again.
Good Reward: Water miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Since you will have no means of torching the ship when you
get this quest, the only evil option left is to kill the
sailors.
Evil Reward: Nothing! (Except for a comic scene after the
killing.)
8.1.6 THE PIED PIPER
Location: By the village crйche and the cave in the mountain
beside it.
Good Solution
-------------
As Whitey says, the key to rescuing the children alive is to
somehow get
The piper to release them. Since you can"t